


Beware Greeks Bearing.

by dsa_archivist



Category: due South
Genre: Challenge Response, Crossover, F/M, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1999-06-22
Updated: 1999-06-22
Packaged: 2018-11-10 12:07:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11126697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dsa_archivist/pseuds/dsa_archivist
Summary: Very belated response to challenge on Dief involving Turnbull...





	Beware Greeks Bearing.

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Speranza, the archivist: this story was once archived at [Due South Archive](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Due_South_Archive). To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in June 2017. I tried to reach out to all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Due South Archive collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/duesoutharchive).

BEWARE GREEKS BEARING GIFTS...

## BEWARE GREEKS BEARING GIFTS...

By TimBeastie 

email: 

Usual Disclaimer.... 

Result of a challenge, to sum up: 

1\. Improbable Turnbull Romance, 

2\. Plastic Fern, 

3\. Turnbull dusting, 

4\. Turnbull's improbable arrest 

Xovers kind of, but telling would spoil!   
  


"How could she? How could she?" It was clear to all that Constable Turnbull was in a snit of some magnitude. He stamped his non too dainty regulation boots and flounced off in his new pinny; the one with Eddie and Sophie's engagement photo on the front. A man had to do what a man had to do and this man had to dust or he'd simply quite literally burst, or so Rennie told himself through teeth so clenched they hurt. 

As he shot through the Consulate in search of liberal sprinkles of dusty comfort he recalled with some crumb of comfort his last appraisal from his commanding officer. 

"Well Turnbull.." she began and pursed her lips. 

"Well...Turnbull." she continued, arching her hands and tapping them to what the Constable fully believed was a catchy rhythm. In fact he got so caught up in the possible tunes his Inspector might have chosen his head began to nod and his lips began to hum along. Now was it Anne Murray, Gordon Lightfoot or even perhaps a catchy ditty by the Spice Girls. A fond smile passed his lips as he began daydreaming the Inspector's debut in a mini Canadian flag replacing Whassherface Spice. Girlpower indeed, or perhaps more respectfully Ladypower. 

"Constable!" 

"Huh?" Dopey Look No 3, all Turnbull's "Looks" had been fully categorised by both Fraser and the Inspector with remarkable correlation as they had discovered when setting up the new Consulate database. The Inspector's Moods were another data set altogether and one which the aforementioned Constable kept securely in the best program around - his head. 

"...you....you.....*dust* very well." She shut his file with a satisfied bang and dismissed him. 

Now the aching, bruised, battered, smushed and generally jumped all over with stiletto heels, heart of the lanky Constable would be healed if only for a short time by the wondrously therapeutic properties of his favorite dustbuster. 

Hadn't it all started so promisingly? He recalled the cosy tete-a-tete in Mrs Miggin's Cornish Tea and Pie Shoppe, consoling the tragic widow Bouquet. 

"How understanding you are." The well rounded figure in flattering widow's weeds smiled bravely at the young Constable who had been forced, very politely, to invade her table, her exclusive table, by the window, the one affording the very best views of the promenade. Mrs Bouquet as she was briefly, until he revealed his unexpected reason for visiting foreign shores, Hyacinth as she became upon the revelation. 

"Ah sweet Hyacinth" moaned the lovelorn Constable aka the newly anointed Lord Aolach of Penrith, "my sweet flower, age would not, did not, wither you..but whither I?" Turnbull whisked his duster every more fiercely against the precious vase, centrepiece of the Consultate's ever so thrilling Ethnic Diversity Within the Canada exhibition. Unfortunately the vase did not take kindly to his ministrations and wobbled alarmingly. 

"Oh my! Oh my!!" With a frantic grab Turnbull successfully managed to elude the vase altogether and it crashed to the floor with a resonance made all the more powerful by the splendid acoustics of the Queen's Bedroom. 

Then something really strange began to happen. From the shards of the vase smoke began to curl slowly and steadily upwards becoming thicker and thicker until it all but engulfed half the room. Helplessly and not thinking in any way straight, Turnbull looked wildly round for something to put out the supposed fire. Fred, the plastic fern lurked innocently at his side. Somehow Turnbull's brain ignored the generally known fact that plastic melts in the face of heat and he all but pounced on the fern and began beating steadfastly in the general location of the smoke. 

"Ow!" Something, someone grabbed Fred and held tight. 

Miffed the Mountie pulled back, and pulled back and.... 

"Constable Fraser!!" he breathed hardly willing to believe his eyes and the eyeful he was getting. He had heard about Fraser's exploits at the girls school but this was, this was...unbelievably short, revealing and my wasn't Fraser so muscular, especially ahem *frontally*. 

"Who?" said the vision of Fraserness one strong hand still holding Fred tight. 

"Amnesia it must be." whispered Turnbull. So many knocks on the head, it's no wonder the man's confused, he thought. 

"Nope Xena." She made a slight moue "You wouldn't like Amnesia she's a bit..you know." Xena tapped her head significantly, all the while becoming more convinced that the man in front of her shared much of Amnesia's problems.   
  


At that the door burst open. Inspector Thatcher rushed in, got as far as Turnbull and registered Xena, took in what Xena was or wasn't wearing and gasped. 

"Fraser! There you are." and promptly fainted. To be fair she had been on shift for 72 hours without food, but plotting the downfall of threats to Canada was a difficult business. 

Xena, not realising this, snorted and muttered something about puny humans under her breath. She let got of Fred, leaving the bewildered Mountie holding the plant, and bent over the prone figure of Consulate power. 

"Wake up, wakey wakey" 

"Sorry?" said Turnbull, Xena was talking Greek to him. 

"Look useless, get some water, food too." 

"Uh I don't understand." 

"What?" Xena frowned at the dimwit's sudden outburst. 

There and then a miracle occurred. Turnbull actually got it. Fred had somehow been turned into a conduit, like the babelfish in a book he'd never got round to reading. Fred had become a babelfern. With some, actually with a lot of trepidation Turnbull grasped Xena's hand and laid it gently on Fred's feathery fronds. 

"We can only understand each other when we both touch the plant." he explained, his brain glowing with the strain of it all. 

Xena shrugged. "Okay. What's with this *Fraser* business anyway?" 

"It's just that you look a lot like Constable Fraser, RMCP..who first....uh.well nevermind. The important thing is..." 

"The important thing is Fraser's missing." moaned the Inspector coming round and reaching feebly for Fred. 

"So this guy Fraser..." Xena sounded evasive and both Mounties looked suspiciously at her. Turnbull was especially careful to look suspiciously at her face. 

"You know something." accused Margaret, ever the Mountie, Thatcher. 

"He wouldn't happen to possess really really bright orange coat thing, with a hood?" Xena wouldn't look at them and squirmed in ways which Turnbull found *most* offputting. 

"No." replied Turnbull with conviction. 

"Yes." sighed the Inspector. Her underling frowned and threw her a puzzled look. Bright wasn't really Fraser's bag, except for the uniform of course. 

Meg sat up cautiously, she still felt pretty nauseus. 

"Frannie gave it to him for his birthday. Sorry Turnbull but you weren't at the party, you had a prior engagement I believe." 

Rennie winced. His last meeting with Hyacinth bounced across his memory hitting his heart on the way. 

"So naturally he felt he had to wear it. The last time I saw...F..Fraser, " she choked, but recovered well enough. "Frannie was tying a knot in the hood to protect him against the storm." Yeah and the little....ahem....wanted to get that bit closer to the liplock she so desired. 

Well tough cookies Frannie dear, Fraser had reared like a skittered horse and fled into his favourite closet. Only he hadn't come out. Frannie being a true daughter of Vecchio boldly went where no Vecchio had gone before, in after him. After a minute or two, she poked her head out and quietly asked: 

"Does this have a secret door or sumthin'? Cuz Fraser's not here." 

A secret door? Hmm well that might explain Fraser's odd fondness for popping in there. Well they had searched and tapped and finally taken Consulate pickaxes to discover that sometimes a closet was just a closet after all. 

"So what's your story? Where did you see Fraser?" Margaret's heart thudded painfully as she recognised Xena's posture as bad news coming your way. 

"There was a guy, in just such an outfit and the glimpse I caught of his face did give me cause to pause." It was like looking into a mirror she mused, an older mirror, but a striking likeness nonetheless. It had taken them both by surprise, and then.. 

"The centaurs surrounded him. It was quite brutal I expect. They danced round him in a circle singing typically bloodthirsty songs. I fear.." 

"They killed Benny!" screeched Mountie and Mountie in unison. 

"I expect so. I could do nothing for the unfortunate for at that very moment I felt the tug of whatever magical power brought me here. I'm sorry." 

"Oh no!" wailed the distraught Canadians falling into each other's arms, sobbing wildly. 

"Anyway" continued Xena rather uncomfortable at this uncontrolled display of emotion, "I would like to return to my own land, so if you would be kind enough to cast the appropriate spell, I'll be on my way." 

"Spell? What spell?" sniffled Turnbull. "That..that..dashed vase fell over and broke and...." 

Xena inspected the fragments carefully, sniffing each piece thoroughly, with a stray lick or two thrown in for good measure. 

Turnbull narrowed his eyes. Was this *really* Xena, whoever the heck she was...or was Constable Fraser trying to pull a fast one. Only one way to find out he figured, girding his mental loins. 

"Excuse me "ma'am"" He laid his hands on his trusty Canadian Army knife, the one with the extra attachment for basting furry nightcrawlers. Swiftly and with precision surprising to anyone who knew him the Constable relieved Xena of the scanty leather basque type garment she just about wore. 

"Constable Turnbull!" cried the Inspector aghast. 

Xena was unintelligible, having let go of Fred, which was just as well really. 

"But.....but...I thought that...uh I guess not." The evidence of his folly hove into view and he groaned softly. "Oh dear." 

Xena took her own knife to Turnbull's throat while Inspector Thatcher offered a bedspread from the Queen's bed. The grecian warrior took Fred in her other hand and thanked the Inspector, then demanded that the pervert in red be arrested forthwith. 

"Well knowing Turnbull he really did think you might be Constable Fraser in disguise." pleaded the Inspector. 

Xena was adamant as she surveyed the ruins of her best leather figure hugger. 

"Arrest that...that...unspeakable cad....or....!" Fred's translation seemed to have lost something of the ire, for the look cast upon poor Rennie bespoke something far far worse. 

The Inspector sighed. It looked like she had no option, perhaps it was for the best. Renfield Turnbull would make a great prison librarian...or something. 

"Renfield Turnbull..." As the Inspector began her arresting speech Rennie could only stand gaping at her, too dazed to comprehend what was happening to him. His about to be former superior officer gripped his shoulder and marched him out of the room, promising Xena she'd return with a computer to help her search for a way back to well...Ancient Greece apparently.   
  


The door closed. 

Xena bit her lip. 

Xena bit her lip harder. Tears began to spill down her cheeks. The sheet she was wrapped in slid down her frame as she bent double. After a while she stopped laughing and retrieved the sheet. It would come in useful she thought. Yes very useful in wrapping the more valuable and portable exhibits. With due care and attention she peeled the mask from her face and reached under the mattress to retrieve a new mask kit and some clothes, and a mirror - just to make sure she got everything in place. 

Victoria Metcalf-Fraser hummed show tunes as she applied her new face. Soon she'd be with her love, her husband and with the wherewithal to enjoy a decent honeymoon and begin a new life. Perhaps not the cosy domesticity he imagined but what the heck he did love her didn't he? 

"And by golly Fred" she whispered to the fern as she replaced it on its pedestal, "He's surely proved it this time eh?" 

### THE END....

Xover's courtesy of Keeping Up Appearances...Mrs Hyacinth Bouquet/Bucket "The Lady of the House", and of course Xena(ish). 


End file.
